Tag Archives: garbanzo beans

The last time I made baked beans was a semi-disaster. I ended up losing a portion of beans when getting into Andrew’s car. This portion of beans was scalding hot and landed in my crotch. As you can imagine, boiling hot beans in your groin area is really uncomfortable. These beans tasted great and they were an awesome addition to last year’s Super Bowl festivities.

I decided to try making baked beans again. This time around I made the Veganomicon’s Cheater Baked Beans. These were a lot easier and less time consuming than the other beans I made last year. They, however, are lacking a depth of flavor that were in the Super Bowl crotch burner beans. I really think that dried beans end up tasting a lot better than canned beans and some addition of a smokey flavor is necessary for great tasting baked beans (be this from a ham hock, bacon, or hickory smoke flavoring).

The Cheater Baked Beans

2 tbsp. olive oil

1 medium sized yellow onion, diced as small as you can (I left this out because someone else in my house used my onion *cough cough* Andrew).

3 tbsp. minced garlic

1 15 oz. can tomato sauce (I used no salt added)

1/2 cup light molasses (I used dark because that’s what I had in my cupboard)

2 tsp. mustard (they call for mustard powder, but I did not have mustard powder nor did I care to buy any)

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. ground allspice

1 bay leaf

2 15 oz. cans small white beans (I used navy beans)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Or be like me and put it at 375 and then change it later because you never read recipes carefully.

2. Preheat a medium-sized pot over medium heat. Saute your onion if someone didn’t steal it in the olive oil for about ten minutes. You want them to be a little browned and caramelized. Add the garlic and saute for one more minute. Add the tomato sauce, molasses, mustard, salt, allspice, and bay leaf and cook for about five minutes.

3. Then pour this into an oven safe dish. Or maybe you have one of those oven safe dishes that can be put on the stove top. I never experiment with this because things can go badly. Cover the dish and transfer it into the oven. Cook for thirty minutes, then stir, put the lid back on and then cook for thirty more minutes.

This left me with fairly runny baked beans. I like less sauce and more bean. It also has a strong tomato flavor and I’m not a big tomato person. However, it did taste nice with my bagel this morning for breakfast.

Hummus

My hummus contains one can of chickpeas and then I add tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Then I process it in the food processor until well blended. It’s not that complicated and I never measure. I prefer the consistency of hummus done in a blender, but my blender is devilishly difficult to clean so I used the food processor this time.

I’m not sure if anyone has realized yet but I love chickpeas. Andrew also loves them so we cook them a lot. He is really trying to reduce his meat intake and one way of doing that is bulking up on other proteins. Chickpeas are one of my favorite beans to eat. One of my favorite things to eat them in is curry. There is a curry place very close to where Andrew used to live in Santa Clara that served amazing channa masala. Now their channa masala was not vegan and this one is!

This post celebrates the first time I have made rice correctly without a rice cooker. I am very proud of myself.

Chickpea Curry (Channa Masala)

1 15 oz. can cooked chickpeas

1 pkg. Chicken Tikka Masala mix (I know this is cheating)

1/3 cup lite coconut milk (the mix called for heavy cream, but I wanted to make it vegan and Andrew hates dairy)

cooked rice

I made my curry with white rice, but next time I think I will do brown rice. It has more flavor than white rice. I do however have twenty pounds of white rice sitting in my cupboard.

1. In a pot bring water, spice packet, and coconut milk to boil. Then add chickpeas and cook until heated through.

We served this with Andrew’s asparagus with olive oil and lemon juice.

Last weekend I got the Veganomicon at Urban Outfitters for less than ten dollars. This book runs retail at around thirty dollars, so I was stoked to find it for so cheap. The binding and cover was a little damaged and there was some strange purple ink going on inside the book, but I don’t care: it’s a cookbook, it will get banged up around the kitchen.

It’s been inspiring to read all the recipes. One of the recipes that I was most interested in when I first saw the book was the chickpea cutlet recipe. One of the most difficult things about being vegetarian/vegan is finding meat substitutes. I’m sure that the need to have something meaty wears off as time goes by but I’ve only been doing this for a couple months so that desire is still there. I’ve tried tofu, seitan, TVP, and tempeh. I only like tofu and tempeh fried which isn’t the best thing for you. Plus unfermented soy is not good for the digestive system. I only like TVP when it comes pre-packaged as ground beef, but when I make it tastes like salty corn flakes: disgusting. Seitan is good but it takes a while to make and that much gluten is not good for your digestive tract. The chickpea cutlet is a mixture of mashed chickpeas, vital wheat gluten (what makes your seitan and the stuff that makes your bread chewy), bread crumbs, etc. I liked the idea of getting good protein from beans and the chewiness of wheat gluten.

The chickpea cutlets were simple to make and they came out amazing. I was completely surprised by how chewy, savory, and “meaty” they were. I even made some at my boyfriend’s parent’s house and they tried them and enjoyed them. They’re definitely big meat eaters and they enjoyed the meatiness of the cutlet. Andrew also liked them which is saying a lot since he’s a super picky eater. I was very pleased with the results.

One thing I do not recommend is re-heating these babies. They came out tasting like those frozen vegetarian fake meat products. It was gross, I couldn’t finish eating it. However, when they are fresh they are fantastic and would definitely impress veggies and meat eaters across the board. They however, are not for those who have to be gluten free unfortunately. Sorry guys, my body is fine with the gluten.

1 tablespoon minced garlic (the original recipe called for 2 cloves of garlic pressed, but I buy pre-minced garlic to save time)

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon red chili pepper flakes (this is my addition)

Note: The original recipe also called for 1/2 teaspoon Hungarian paprika, 1/4 teaspoon dried rubbed sage, and 1/2 lemon zest, but I did not have these things on hand. I also made this recipe with 1/4 cup water instead of vegetable broth and Italian seasoned bread crumbs instead of plain bread crumbs. I am eventually going to try this with different seasonings and types of beans.

1. Pre-heat an oven to 375° F. In a mixing bowl, mash the chickpeas together with oil until no whole chickpeas are left. The first time I did this I used a food processor for this step. It goes much quicker and you come up with a less chunky “batter”. However, the second time I made it I just used my hands and a fork and it came out fine. Add the remaining ingredients and knead for about 3 minutes, until strings of gluten have formed.

2. Divide dough into four equal pieces. Knead each piece in your hand for a few moments and then flatten and stretch each into rectangle. Mine were not perfectly rectangular. Meat is not perfectly rectangular so why should other sources of protein come in funky shapes? I don’t like meat shapes. Once they are shaped stretch them so they are about 1/2 inch thick.

3. Brush each side of cutlet with olive oil. Then place on a non-stick baking sheet. Bake for twenty minutes then flip them over and bake for another 8-10 minutes. Serve with a sauce of your choice.

Today I showed up for babysitting and my clients were not home. They had not called me or texted me or emailed me. I thought that I was supposed to come today, but the driveway gate was closed and no one answered the door when I rang. So, I had the evening off to cook. I went straight away to Staff of Life Market in the mid-town area of Santa Cruz. For the vegans and veggies out there, Staff of Life is amazing. They have vegan hot food bar choices, baked goods, and tons of supplements, flours, and starches. Amazing.

I decided I wanted to make a multi-grain, multi-pulse salad. What came out was delicious, though a little soggy. My landlord thought it even looked, smelled, and tasted great. She usually looks at my food with a big “Huh” on her face and says “oh, that looks interesting”. It was salty, sweet, tangy with a variety of textures.

Ingredients

1/2 cup brown rice

1/2 cup red lentils

1/2 cup soft wheat berries

5 medjool dates (you could use dried apricots instead)

1/4 cup dried unsweetened cranberries (you could use raisins if you prefer)

1 can chickpeas

1 large carrot

1/2 pkg. steamed yellow corn

1/4 cup millet

1 tbsp. minced garlic

1 avocado

1 egg (optional)

salt

pepper

pineapple salad vinegar (use whatever vinegar you have on hand)

sunflower oil

agave nectar

1. Boil a large pot of water. While water is boiling, chop carrots, dates, and avocados. Put wheat berries and rice into pot. Let boil for five minutes. Add red lentils to the pot. Boil another five minutes. Add carrots to the pot and boil. After five minutes, add millet and boil all grains until done. Then add an egg and stir. The egg is definitely optional if you want a vegan dish.

2. While the grains are cooking, microwave steam in the bag corn. You could definitely use fresh corn and I recommend doing that, but I had the frozen corn handy. Do not use canned corn. Do not use canned corn ever. If you use canned corn I will stop speaking to you because it is revolting.

3. Add dates, corn, cranberries, avocado, and chickpeas to a large bowl. Add some salt and pepper to this mix. Add minced garlic to this mix.

4. When the grains are done cooking, drain them over the sink very very well. Like through a flour sifter. I did not do this and my salad came out a little wet. Then add them to the dried fruit and chickpea mix. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Add salad vinegar (I think this would be bomb with balsamic vinegar or rice vinegar) and sunflower oil. Mix until combined. I let mine cool a bit. I think it would be even better refrigerated. Then I added pesto on top of this and mixed.

As a recent traitor to omnivorism and convert to cooking vegan, I feel very lucky to live in an area with as many options as Santa Cruz has. Going out to eat is not difficult, it’s not as easy as it was before, but it’s definitely do-able and delicious. There are a couple restaurants in Santa Cruz that are purely vegetarian/vegan: Saturn Cafe, Malabar/Asian Rose, Charlie Hong Kong (I think, though I’m not 100%), Alfresco, and Dharmas. There is also Black China Bakery which has a great variety of fine vegan desserts. I have only been once to the actual bakery, but they sell their desserts at some local grocery stores and coffee houses. Many of the restaurants have a large variety of vegetarian items.

This weekend Andrew and I got food from Yan Flower, Zachary’s, the Falafel House, and Sitar. Ugh, that’s a lot of eating out, but we almost always cook. On Friday night we got food at Yan Flower before going to see Robin Hood. Before this weekend Andrew was convinced that there was no Chinese food restaurant that was better than competent. I told him that Yan Flower was pretty good compared to all others in Santa Cruz and therefore could possibly be considered “good”. We got hot tea, vegetable potstickers, white steamed rice, salty and chilli pepper tofu, and Andrew got Mongolian Lamb. The potstickers were very good, but a little hot (as in temperature) and I almost burned my mouth. The rice was actually good for steamed rice: fluffy and tender. The salty and chilli pepper tofu was fried tofu, jalapeno peppers, garlic, and onions. It was not as salty or spicy as I remember it, but the tofu texture was great. Andrew described it as “egg like” and he enjoyed it as much as he could enjoy tofu. He said the Mongolian Lamb was very good as well.

After taking the night to recover from the mediocrity that was Robin Hood (or Gladiator 2010: Time Travel to The Dark Ages), Andrew and I got breakfast at Zachary’s. Zachary’s is an insanely popular breakfast venue on the main drag downtown. It usually would be insanely crowded at 9am on a Saturday, but we were lucky due to the craptastic weather that we are experiencing mid-May.

I got coffee with soy milk, tofu scramble with avocado, vegan home fries, and oatmeal molasses bread. They make their breads in house and they are all amazing, but oatmeal molasses is my favorite. I thoroughly enjoyed the bread with the avocado spread on it and the home fries were tasty. Tofu scramble just isn’t my thing and this had a rotting garlic scent to it. Andrew enjoyed his scrambled eggs, sausage, and pancakes with Earl Grey Tea.

Later that day we went to check out the Greek Festival in downtown Santa Cruz. There wasn’t anything to it this year: just a bunch of different food booths. This was mostly desserts with a gyro place and another place where you could get souvlaki. There was no falafel which was what Andrew was looking for. Instead we ended up going to the Falafel House on Walnut Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz. The Falafel House is a Syrian/Middle Eastern restaurant. I got the vegetarian combo platter which consisted of baba ghanoush, pita bread, taboulleh salad, falafel, and hummus. Now, I fucked up. I ate the regular yogurt sauce on the falafel instead of the vegan tahini sauce. I didn’t know that they were going to put the yogurt sauce on the falafel and I didn’t feel like bothering them to change it.

I enjoyed the falafel, hummus, and pita bread. I liked the baba ghanoush as well which surprised me since I don’t like eggplant. I definitely think I make better hummus though. I didn’t like the taboulleh salad too much, but I still tried to eat it and it wasn’t wretched. I think I don’t like taboulleh. Another great thing about the Falafel House is the fact that they are always playing Syrian MTV or some other music video channel. Oh and they’re onion rings are amazing.

Today we went out for lunch/dinner instead of cooking because we were bummed after the Sharks losing the first game of the conference finals. Andrew got pizza at Pizza My Heart (a local San Francisco Bay Area chain that began in Capitola). My favorite slice at PMH is pesto. It was the first thing with pesto that I ever liked and converted me to a pesto lover. Screw you campus dining halls for making me afraid of pesto for so long.

At Sitar, I got Chana Masala (vegan chickpea/garbanzo bean curry), vegan naan, basmat rice, ice berg lettuce crap in a compartment, and raita (which I didn’t eat since it’s made with yogurt). The chana masal had wonderful texture: thick sauce, creamy garbanzo beans, melt in your mouth pieces of onion, but it the curry could have been spicier. The rice was a good texture and the naan was good.

Sometimes when I get off work I want a burrito or french fries or something else that I can’t make at home, then I remember that I have to eat what I have in the cupboard because it’s already paid for. It was freezing today so I wanted to make something warm and with substance. I threw together a tasty, simple stew of carbohydrates, veggies, and protein.